Born in Moscow (1968).

A key figure on the Russian nonobjective art scene, Andrey Volkov is the grandson of the legendary Alexander Volkov, a master of color who, to use Alexander Borovsky's description, figured out how to make it "gleam like stained glass", as if light were being refracted through the masses of color.

Having inherited from his grandfather a feel for the psycho-emotional dimensions of the painterly medium, Andrey Volkov combines it with a deeply-rooted fidelity to certain abstract painting traditions of the postwar period, most notably color field painting and minimalism. His understated yet intricately constructed multilayer surfaces can be interpreted within a broad repertoire of artistic analogies, ranging from Yves Klein's monochromes to Barnett Newman's vast coloristic volumes, and from Clifford Still's contrasting palimpsests to the deep tones of Gerhard Richter's more recent creative period.

To Volkov's artistic mind, an abstract image on a surface is a manifestation of paint as an intrinsically valuable, animate substance carrying an internal meaning of its own. Powered by the fundamental values of modernism, the artist reserves the right to autonomy in this post-conceptual age of ubiquitous relativism.

Placing his canvas horizontally, Andrey Volkov, like Jackson Pollock before him, cuts the painterly element loose, letting it live a life of its own, giving it the opportunity to create itself. To Volkov, mimesis is a gravity-driven flux, balancing between randomness and intentionality. Volkov steers clear of gestures expressed in brushstrokes, as he wants his artworks to appear not made by human hand, like traces of elemental processes.

Superimposing colors or shades consecutively on top of one another while aiming for transparency, the artist, in his own words, "cultivates" the painting, demonstrating with striking clarity how deep a surface can get. Or else he will intentionally disrobe it for a glossy mirror effect, making the painting shimmer and making the viewer search for new points of interaction with the visible.

Irina Gorlova describes Volkov's paintings as "organisms of the shimmering mass", adding that they compel the viewer to recalibrate their optics in order to switch from perfunctory contemplation to focused examination. The artist himself admits that he seeks to "slow down" viewers, to inaugurate them into a different temporality so that their attention may settle, as it were, into the thick body of paintwork, engaging it in a psycho-physical interaction. With this, nonobjective painting returns to its roots, rediscovering itself as a "visionary event".

Konstantin Zatsepin


Graduated from the Moscow State Stroganov Academy of Art and Industry (1993).

Contributes to exhibitions (from 1986), participates in numerous exhibitions in Russia and abroad, curates exhibition and publishing projects. Member of the Moscow Union of Artists (from 1995).

Contributor to the parallel programme of the 51st Venice Biennale (the Colore Non Solo project) and the 6th Moscow Biennale (the Revision of Boundaries project).

His works can be found in the State Russian Museum, the New Jerusalem Museum and Exhibition Complex, the Kolodzei Art Foundation (USA), the Kostroma State Gallery, and the Gregory Gallery (USA). Lives and works in Moscow.


Exhibitions:

2024 — Function. Affect — PA Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2024 — 3 х 5 — PA Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2023 — Suspense — PA Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2023 — Function — PA Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2021 — Linea UNO — PA Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2019 — ICCI ART VALLEY, Shanghai, China
2018 — Tra Segno e Pittura. Amarcord (together with Silvio Cattani) — A3 Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2018 — The Preservation of Time — The State Russian Museums, The Marble Palace, St. Petersburg, Russia
2017 — Art Paris Art Fair, Grand Palais, Paris, France.
2017 — Folds. The Visible and the Invisible — Na Kashirke Gallery, A3 Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2017 — One-man show Amalgam — Radishchev Museum of Art in Saratov, House Museum of Pavel Kuznetsov, Russia
2017 — Tra Segno e Pittura (together with Silvio Cattani) — Palazzo Trentini, Trento, Italy
2016 —One-man show Magazzini dell'Arte Contemporanea — Trapani, Italy
2016 — Resistance, Tradition and Opening — Málaga, Spain
2015 — Parallel programme of the 6th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Revision of Boundaries (together with Alladin Garunov and Goshka Bialek), Tunnel Gallery, Stroganov Academy of Art and Industry in Moscow
2015 — Contrapposto (together with Vitaly Kopachev) — Kostroma Municipal Art Gallery, Kostroma, Russia
2015 — This Means Nothing — A3 Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2014 — Finding Freedom in Russian Art. 1961–2014, Hilliard
2014 — University Art Museum, Lafayette, USA
2013 — Non-Involvement (together with Vitaly Kopachev) — ARTPLAY, Moscow, Russia
2013 — Metaphysics of Space. Space of Colour (together with Tomazzo Ottieri) —Gallery 1905, Moscow, Russia
2011 — Apologia of Space — A3 Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2010 — One-man show Fire Walk with Me — A3 Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2009 — Conversation with Russian Avant-Garde, Galerie Treibhaus, Dresden, Germany
2009 — VI International Biennale of Graphic Art in Novosibirsk, Novosibirsk, Russia
2008 — Moscow – New York = Parallel Play: Selections from the Kolodzei Collection. Soho Art Museum, New York
2008 — One-man show New Works — Embassy of the Republic of Singapore, Moscow, Russia
2008 — ХХ Century Russian Art (Selections from the New Jerusalem Museum Collection) — Russian Academy of Arts, Moscow, Russia
2007 — Impossible Combinations — Gallerie Packhof, Hann. Münden, Germany
2007 — Moscow – New York = Parallel Play: Selections from the Kolodzei Collection, National Centre for Contemporary Arts, Moscow, Russia
2006 — Colore non solo — Theseustempel – Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria
2005 — Collage in Russia: XX Century — State Russian Museum, St Petersburg, Russia
2005 — Colore non solo — Spazio Thetis, Arsenale Novissimo.
Unofficial programme of the 51st Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy
2005 — Vienna Transit — Kunsthalle Mintorp, Düsseldorf, Germany
2003 — One-man exhibition New Surfaces — A3 Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2002 — 37/68 Painting as Habitat (together with Alexander Volkov) — A3 Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2002 — Moscow Abstract Art — State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2002 — Painting as Habitat (together with Alexander Volkov) — A3 Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2001 —Abstraction in Russia: ХХ Century — State Russian Museum, St Petersburg, Russia
2001 — Elbart NN festival — Hamburg, Germany
2000 — Red Mirror (together with Viktor Kukharsky) — A3 Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2000 — Elbart 2000 — Hamburg, Germany
1999 — One-man show — Schio, Italy
1998 — One-man show Reflections / Introspections — State Institute for Art Studies, Moscow, Russia
1998 — Riflessi — Eleutheros Gallery, Albissola, Italy
1994 — The Volkov Dynasty — Gregory Gallery, Washington DC, USA
1994 — International Youth Biennale, Busan, South Korea
1991 — The Volkov Artists: Three Generations — Kovcheg Gallery, Moscow, Russia
1986 — First student exhibition at the Moscow School of Art and Industry (former Stroganov School), Russia